Many thanks to Dennis for the editing of this story.
This story is a sequel to the first part of Falling Down - Climbing up. Please read that story before you read this one.
About one year after dumping my cheating wife I had got a new neighbor, a single woman with a girl in the same age as my daughter. The girls became friends within a short time and for practical reasons regarding the girls I invited in her mother for a coffee break. She was a very easygoing and gorgeous, a newly divorced lawyer.
We almost immediately got some kind of friendly relations and that was why I after a while got warm feelings for her and suggested a date. She said a kind "No thanks" about a date but suggested we meet on family level together with our children. That went very well and all five of us, Madeleine, her daughter Johanna, my daughter Jessica, my son Melvin and I had good times when we were together in different combinations.
Of course I got some short times talking alone with Madeleine, usually at her or my house with the children somewhere in the same house. In my opinion we slowly even got closer but though I did my very best, she always had some excuse for not having a real date with a dinner at the best restaurant and hopefully even some romantic time together after that.
After some further time without any real success to get into Madeleine's panties I began to feel caught in an invisible trap because she and I had promised to be honest and faithful in our family relationship. That put a stop to the simple solution of fixing one-night stands at some bar in town as I had done during my first year after my divorce.
My ex-wife was still single after her lover left her after sharing an apartment with her for a month and I'm sure that she would have gladly accepted a dinner date with me. Especially a date with a good fucking included, but that had given her a false hope of me taking her back, which will never happen and I couldn't behave as such asshole not even to her who cheated me once a month during a year.
Then my relation with Madeleine got problems when she told me that she wanted to see a famous show that was played at a restaurant in our town, but was sold out for a long time. However, I thought that now it would be my great chance to get a real date and promised her tickets. Once again I used my connections and succeed to getting two tickets at a table near the stage, expensive as hell on the black market.
Happy as a teenager at the first date I called Madeleine at her job and told her the good news about the tickets but to my great disappointment she didn't sounded happy at all when she told me, "I'm sorry but I've already got an invitation to that show from one of my colleagues and regret to say that I have accepted his invitation. I'm really sorry."
Not much for me to say. Only, "No need to be sorry, you're a big girl and can do whatever you wants to do. Have a pleasant evening."
I had no interest in talking further with her about those tickets and had not even an idea about what to do with them. Ten minutes later Madeleine rang me and said that one of her colleagues was desperately searching for two tickets for that show and would pay me a very high price if I were interested in making a nice profit.
Obviously they wanted to go as two couples from her job, but why humiliate me by that damn call about my tickets. Did she really think that she was the only fish in the pond? I did my best to be polite when I replied, "Sorry, but I've got only two tickets and need them for myself."
Then something came to my mind. My ex-wife Marianne and I needed to have some talk about our children and to my great pleasure she accepted my invitation to come with me to the show and agreed that a positive atmosphere during that talk would be of an advantage.
When I picked up Marianne she surprised me and looked very gorgeous in a nice dress, make-up and very nice hair-do. She was great and wanted to show me what I had lost in our divorce.
At the show we met several acquaintances, talked with some of them and I even saw Madeleine together with a baldheaded man about ten years older than I. No doubt that she did see us.
To my surprise Madeleine and her escort got seated rather close to Marianne and me. She gave me a smile when walking me but didn't stop for saying hello or introducing her escort.
Marianne and I had a pleasant evening, got some agreements bout our children, enjoyed the great show and I must confess that it was with very divided feelings I said good night to her in the taxi outside the building where she had her apartment. At that moment I missed her as hell and began to doubt if Madeleine was worth the waiting.
Madeleine and her escort had left their table before us and as far as I could see they didn't have any good time together. Looked more like a funeral than a romantic date.
Already at ten o'clock the next morning Madeleine rang and surprised me with suggestion about lunch the same day.
We met at a small restaurant and as soon we were seated she asked, "You had pleasant date yesterday, I presume?"
"Pleasant time yes, however not really a date, but a good time, indeed. The painful truth is that my first choice for that event preferred an old skinhead and obviously doesn't care about me."
"Is that what you think?"